Three views of creation are defined
by answers to three questions:WHO — creation by God? Is
our world designed and created by God, with the ideas-and-actions of God
producing the material substance and characteristics of nature, and governing
the history of nature? A person with a theistic
worldview will say YES.WHEN — age of universe? Is
the universe (including the earth) young or old, with an age measured in
thousands of years or billions of years?HOW — method of creation? Has
the formative history of nature involved only normal-appearing natural process
(theistically actualized and governed by God) or has it also included some
miraculous-appearing changes (theistically actualized and governed by God)?

As you can see in this table, the three main views
agree about
the most important doctrine of creation — the question of WHO created — but
they disagree about the WHEN and HOW of creation:

terms commonly used:

young-earth
creation

progressive
creation

theistic
evolution

terms with more detail:

theistic
young-earth
144-hourcreation

theistic
old-earth
progressivecreation

theistic
old-earth
evolutionary creation

theistic
worldview? — WHO

theistic

theistic

theistic

age of universe? — WHEN

young

old

old

method
of creation? — HOW
(using only natural process?)

during
6 days,
was miraculous

natural plus miraculous

only natural

Theistic
Creation In contrast with a pantheistic view
that the universe has become God, or an atheistic view
that denies the existence of God, or a deistic view
that denies the ongoing activities of God, each view described here (above
and below) can be authentically theistic
by affirming that God created our world and is
active in our world.

Three basic creation
theories, plus variations — all agreeing about WHO, but with differing views
of WHEN and HOW — seem to be compatible with a Judeo-Christian doctrine
of theistic creation:
Inyoung-earth
creation, everything in the universe
was miraculously created in a 144-hour period less than 10,000 years ago. Later,
most of the earth's geology and fossil record were formed in a global flood. {
In a variation that is less common, the earth is young but the universe is
old. }
Inprogressive
creation,
also called old-earth creation, at various
times during a long history of nature (spanning billions of years) God used
miraculous-appearing
action
to create. There
are two kinds of progressive creation: one proposesindependent
creations "from scratch" so a new
species would not necessarily have any relationships with previously existing
species; another
proposescreations by modificationof
the genetic material (by changing,
adding, or deleting it) for some members (or all members) of an existing
species. Each of these two theories proposes
a history with some natural-appearing evolutionary creation plus miraculous-appearing
creations
(independent or by modification) that
occur
progressively through
time.
In evolutionary
creation,
also called theistic evolution, natural evolution
was God's method of creation, with the universe designed so physical
structures (galaxies, stars, planets) and complex biological organisms (bacteria,
fish, dinosaurs, humans) would naturally evolve.

ASA's View What is
the view of the American Scientific Affiliation? "As
an organization, the ASA does not take a position when there is honest
disagreement between Christians on an issue. We
are committed to providing an open forum where controversies can be discussed
without fear of unjust condemnation. Legitimate differences of opinion
among Christians who have studied both the Bible and science are freely
expressed within the Affiliation in a context of Christian love and concern
for truth." {from the ASA
Statement of Faith} But on the most important
question there is no disagreement, as explained by Richard Bube, writing
as editor of the ASA journal in 1971:The ASA
does not take an official position on controversial questions. Creation
is not a controversial question. I have no hesitancy in affirming, "we
believe in creation," for every ASA member. The Biblical doctrine
of creation is one of the richest doctrines revealed to us by God. It
reveals to us that the God who loves us is also the God who created us
and all things; at once it establishes the relationship between the God
of religious faith and the God of physical reality. ... We believe
in creation. It
is unthinkable for a Christian to do otherwise. { quoted from We
Believe in Creation (6 k) }

We also think that when we're searching
for truth by asking important questions about creation — who,
when, and how — our goal should be a wise use of all available
information,
from
both
sources
that God has provided
for
us: the Word of God (in the Bible) and the Works
of God (in
nature).

THE Christian View of Creation?
Many young-earth creationists claim there are only two basic
views of origins: young-earth creation (Christian) and old-earth evolution
(atheistic). They define all old-earth views as "evolutionary" and
imply that an old-earth view cannot be authentically Christian. They
ignore the important differences between three questions (when, how, who) and
use "when" to define the answer to all three. This young-earth
"view of other views" is oversimplistic, and for
a variety of reasons — personal
& interpersonal, spiritual & scientific — it's important to
ask "Is
young-earth belief an essential part of Christian theology?" AGE
OF THE EARTH — THEOLOGY

One
principle for logical evaluation — which can be used in science, theology,
or any other area of life — is outlined in the appendix below, using evolution
as an example.

LOGICAL COMPARISON
When we ask "What is evolution?", we can look
at many types of evolutionary change — astronomical, geological,
and chemical, plus four scientific aspects of biological evolution:
• micro-E (within a species) and
minor macro-E (to produce a new-yet-similar species), • fossil-E
progressions (in the geological record), • common
descent (with all species related by shared ancestors), and • Total
Macro-E with all biocomplexity and biodiversity produced by cumulative
effects of macro-E. And in a non-scientific meaning, some people think
that evolution implies "only nature exists, and there is no God." This
table shows whether these aspects of evolution are accepted in four
views of creation:

theories of creation:
For each E, does a creation
theory say yes or no?

creation
by natural
evolution

progressive
creations by
modification

progressive
independent
creations

young-earth
independent
creation

micro-E and minor macro-E

YES

YES

YES

YES

fossil-E (on an old earth)

YES

YES

YES

no

full common descent

YES

YES

no

no

natural Total Macro-E

YES

no

no

no

"only nature exists" atheism

no

no

no

no

Splitting a general "evolution" into
specific components allows logical comparisons:
To distinguish between any two theories, we should compare
them and focus on disputed components, where one theory says YES
and the other says NO. All theories agree (YES YES YES YES) about "micro-E
and minor macro-E" so these are not useful for evaluating the
creation theories; and only young-earth creation disagrees with
evidence for fossil evolution; evidence for common descent counts against
one old-earth theory (with independent creations) but not another (with creations
by genetic modification); and most of the common "evidence for evolution" does
not support creation by natural evolution over progressive creations
by modification. { these ideas are from an FAQ
for Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design by
Craig Rusbult, 5 k }

•
This page describes high-quality educational resources on the web, with
views from a variety of perspectives, that we think you'll find interesting
and useful, that will stimulate your thinking and help you explore a wide
world of ideas. INFORMATION for readers is in a brief
page about our Goal (a quick education for you), Quality
(because we've made choices) and Variety (you'll see multiple positions,
hence the disclaimer below), Exploring with Freedom (you can
use sections and page-links in any order), Size (what does "20
k + 5k" mean?), and Links (that open in a new window).

A DISCLAIMER:
In this page you'll find links to resource-pages expressing a wide range
of views, which don't necessarily represent the views of the American
Scientific Affiliation. Therefore, linking to a page does
not imply an endorsement by the ASA. We
encourage you to use your own critical thinking to evaluate everything you
read.

This website for Whole-Person Education has TWO KINDS OF LINKS:
anITALICIZED LINK keeps you inside a page, moving you to
another part of it, and
a NON-ITALICIZED LINK opens another page. Both keep everything inside this window,
so your browser's BACK-button will always take you back to where you were.

this page, written by Craig Rusbult (editor of ASA's website
for Whole-Person Education), is
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/views2.htm
and was revised
June 4, 2010